I seem to have been absent from this particular art form for far too long.
I've long been stricken by the regular business of classes, attempting to work,
get projects done, work on a couple comics, and agonizing about my complete
inability to finish an actual story.

A while back, I set out to do an experiment. My theory was that people actually
can write fairly well — much better, in fact, than they would ever give themselves
credit for. Unfortunately, as one's skill increases, so does one's eye for flaws
in one's own work. Hence, it's often the case that authors and artists can't
bear to look at their work anymore, despite the fact that there's not really
that much wrong with it. They stare at a page, then run off and go do something
else, living in perpetual paralyzing fear that they will not live up to their
own expectations.

Therefore, I present the results of simply writing without a care in the world,
with the only goal being to get the whole thing done. It's a dark little bizarre
alternate universe I like to call…

Chapter 1: Just Plain Wrong

Terra Incognita was having a great day. She'd had one yesterday, and this morning
looked like it was going to be wonderful as well. Her life had always been a
daily joy, filled with peace and happiness and loving, friendly people. It had
been that way for as long as she could remember. However, she didn't have that
great of a memory. The cheerful little redhead went about her daily business,
attended school, and generally didn't notice the common events of social and
religious strife in her hometown of Ulster, Northern Ireland.

If ignorance was bliss, Terra was the happiest girl in the whole wide world.
While the carnage went on about her, she would always step forward through the
ashes and rubble to congratulate this week's new victor.

"What a sweet girl," the people would often comment as she skipped
past them to the high-walled elementary school she attended.

Her grades were never very good. In fact, she could be considered one of nature's
"D" students. She never, ever failed a class… but she never did
particularly well in any of them, either. In fact, her instructors usually allowed
her to pass because she was just too gosh darn cute to fail. It would have been
like kicking a particularly stupid — but adorable — puppy.

Blaming the environment in which they were raising their child for her lack
of development, her parents decided that it was time to move, and the further
away they went, the better. One day, as Terra came home from school, her mother
inquired if she would enjoy learning Japanese.

"Tee-hee!" Terra giggled thoughtfully with a finger to her cheek,
"I'd love to, Mom, but I'm no good at math!"

As it turned out, Terra's mother was originally from Japan and often spoke
the language around her, so it wasn't that big of a stretch to get Terra to
communicate on nearly the same level in Japanese as she usually did in English
or Gaelic. The words were the same; only the accent changed.

When the time came to leave the land of eternal strife and shamrocks, Terra
had just gotten out of grade school and also arrived at that special point in
her life when boys started noticing her — noticing her, that is, for reasons
other than her ever-so-pullable ponytails.

In other words, she was quickly becoming a teen, and worse, a fairly pretty
one. Even her titanium-willed father worried what might become of her if she
didn't quickly become wiser. Therefore, especially at the tender age of fourteen,
Terra was given strict instructions that she was not to attempt to date anyone
without express written permission.

The girl innocently thought that meant she was supposed to leave a note before
going out every day, just in case she happened to meet someone she liked. So
that's exactly what she did this morning.

"Dear Mom and Dad," Terra wrote aloud, "I've gone off to school.
If I meet any nice boys and bring them home, I'll call first and then you can
sign on the line that I'm putting on the bottom of this paper. Love, Terra.
Hugs and kisses!
________"

How she managed to pronounce the blank space was a mystery. Nevertheless, she
did it with an uncanny clarity.

"To-die-mas!" Terra announced as she walked outside. She wore her
hair in two short obnoxious ponytails and had donned her blue and white seifuku
in preparation for her first day at Juuban Junior High School. Her mother, Kasumi
Incognita, waved back while sweeping the front porch of the new Incognita household.

"Have fun!" Kasumi said brightly. "Don't play out in the street
too much today. Okay, dear?"

"Haaai!" Skipping along the way, the adolescent swung her book bag
back and forth while singing, "Junior high! Junior high! I don't know why,
but it's… junior high!" She was so excited she hardly noticed when she
knocked down another girl with her bag and trampled her badly before continuing
on her merry way.

"Hey!" Naru called after the girl who had run her over. She got back
up, dusted herself off, and sped after the whirling, skipping human juggernaut.
"Hold up!"

The redhead stopped, turned around, smiled, and tilted her head sideways. "Good
morning! Who are you?"

Taken somewhat off-guard, Naru bowed slightly and introduced herself to this
new person. "I'm Osaka Naru. I can't believe you didn't see me back there!"
Looking the girl over, it was obvious she wasn't from around here, but judging
from her accent and diction, she couldn't exactly have been a foreigner either.
Perhaps one of her parents was European or something. "You're not from
around here, are you? What's your name? Where are you from?"

"I'm Terra Incognita," Terra replied sweetly as she bobbed from side
to side and twirled a finger in her hair. "I'm from Ireland! Tee-hee!"

"Ireland." Naru noticed a large sticker on Terra's blouse that read
in transliterated katakana, "Kiss me. I'm Irish!" She tried to resolve
the horrible language inconsistencies in her mind, but quickly gave up and said,
"It's nice to meet you, Incognita-san—"

"All right, 'Terra,'" said Naru. "Say, it looks like you're
headed my way. I thought I knew everyone in this neighborhood, but do you go
to Juuban Junior High?"

Terra nodded emphatically. "Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh! I just moved in."

Naru smiled back. "Just moved in? Yeah, I thought so. In that case, maybe
I could show you around later. Would you like me to?"

"Sure!" the plucky Irish lass replied.

"Then hurry up. We've only got about five minutes to make it to class.
Are you in my class, I wonder? Well, we'll see when we get there." Terra
fell into step beside Naru, and the two continued chatting on the way to class.

Terra's closed-eye smile suddenly had a bit of smugness, as if she had something
she wanted to surprise the world with but was waiting for the proper moment.
"Naru, what do you wanna be when you grow up?"

Naru held up a hand. "Ah, before I answer that, there's something you
should know. Even if you're from Ireland and honorifics confuse you, you should
probably get to learning them quickly. Being in the jewelry industry, my mom
and I know a lot of rich businessmen that would gladly stab anyone repeatedly
in the head with pointy umbrellas if you speak to them using the wrong suffix."

Terra blinked, obviously not having comprehended much of the statement. "Huh?"

"Call me Osaka-san," Naru added a bit more forcefully and clearly
in English. She made sure to speak her words slowly and to emphasize her syllables
in a way that not even the most annoying gaijin could misinterpret. "Do
you understand?"

Terra scratched her head uncertainly. "Um, kind of. Can you say that again
in Gaelic?" she replied in perfect Japanese — perfect, that is, for a
simple child who always got low grades. "I never did good in English."

Naru threw up her hands and gave up. "Fine, call me Naru. I don't care."
She vaguely recalled that, once upon a time, their conversation had a point.
"What were we talking about again?"

"I don't remember, Naru, but… what do you want to be when you grow up?"

"Oh, that. Actually, I haven't thought about it much. No, I take that
back. I have thought about it. Right now, I'm mostly just helping out my mom
at the Osa-P store when she needs me. I guess I'll probably study something
having to do with business. Finance, maybe once I get through High School. How
about you?"

Terra puffed up proudly. "I wanna be an idol superstar model and have
a cute boyfriend! We'll drive around in a limo and I'll sing for people, and
make everything all better with the world! Not that there's anything wrong with
the world, but still, it'll be great. I wanna bake the whole world a great big
basket of cookies!"

Naru nearly choked trying to keep from laughing. Nearby, a tall man in tarnished
green camouflage armor fell out of the trees, face first into the bushes. Just
having passed the tree and hedges, the girls took no notice of him.

Terra frowned at Naru. "Are you okay?"

Naru recovered. "No, I'm fine. Fine, really I am."

They traveled for another little while in silence.

"So what do you think?" Terra prodded.

"About what?"

"Don't you remember? My hopes and dreams of becoming an idol superstar
model?"

"Oh. That's a… realistic goal," Naru replied while trying not to
sound sarcastic. Terra seemed to have said it in total honesty, albeit a misguided
and clueless honesty. It just wouldn't do to make fun of someone else's dreams,
no matter how unlikely they may seem. Plus, she already had a friend that was
kind of like that. "You know, I can't wait until you meet Usagi."

"Is she my new teacher?"

"Yegads! I hope not! The conspiracy theories alone would drive us all
mad — Er, I mean, no, she's a student, like us. I think you'll like her."

"Is she a cute boy? Should I ask her out?"

Naru's mouth hung open for a second before the neurons in her brain finally
managed to go through the logs and verify that she had not used gender-neutral
pronouns when speaking about her clumsy blonde ponytailed friend. "What?!
No!"

"Okaaaay." Terra bobbed up and down like she wanted to start skipping,
but her companion's slower pace wouldn't allow it.

"Uh huh. I see." Naru rolled her eyes and sighed, wondering what
in the world she'd gotten herself into.

Some distance behind them, the green knight in shining armor slowly arose and
spat out a clod of dirt, his face a mask of shock and horror. The quest he had
pursued for the worst part of an eon culminated in this latest discovery, the
results of which were to him very much less than satisfactory.

"They… CUT OUT HER BRAIN!!!" he cried.

"No kidding," he replied. "What do you think I am?"

"Me?"

"Right!"

"But she's happy as she is, and if she's happy, I'm happy, right?"

"Look, I'm not happy as she is, so she's not happy as she is."

"What?!"

"Fine, then. We'll just have to make some… modifications, won't we?"

"You mean…?"

"Yes, I do."

"But that'll destroy her happiness! Ignorance is bliss!"

"Ignorance may be bliss… but it will not save either of us."

"Save who from what?"

"Save us from ourselves."

"Who are we, exactly?"

"Me and her. We must be one, or perish."

"That's kind of fatalistic, y'know."

"That's the way things have to be."

"So, we'll follow her, find out what the problem is, and fix it."

"And if we can't fix it?"

"Then once we find that problem, we'll BLOW IT TO BITS!!!"

"YEAH, BABY!"

"That's what I'm talking about." He nodded to himself, satisfied
with the answer he had given himself. "Right. On we go!"

The man snapped his fingers and vanished in a flash.

A careful observer would have been able to see men's size twelve shoeprints
emerge on the sidewalk one by one, going in the direction where the two girls
went.

Once at school, Terra met her new seventh grade class and teacher. She was
given the mandatory introduction, but somehow managed to mess up that first
impression.

Terra skipped over to her desk and sat down, oblivious to the horrific cultural
faux pas she had just committed.

Naru got up and whispered some important details to her fuming instructor,
whose eyes softened with understanding a moment later.

"Oh," Haruna hesitated, "it seems that Terra is a foreigner,
from Ireland. Therefore, she does not understand how to speak properly to her
equals or superiors. Please show restraint and do not beat her to within an
inch of her life when she forgets to address any of you with proper honorifics."

The student body nodded and hummed their acceptance of this analysis. The last
one they had heard of to have been a party to committing such an atrocity of
missing or incorrect suffixes still hadn't gotten out of the intensive care
unit. As the rumor went, an umbrella had been involved in some fashion. But
surely they could be forgiving of such a sweet, innocent Irish girl — for awhile,
at least. There was such a thing as wearing out one's welcome, no matter how
cute one may be.

Homeroom otherwise began in a calm and normal fashion… that is, until some
older boy whose voice had already changed started shouting, "SHUT UP, SHUT
UP, EVERYONE JUST SHUT UP!" But nobody found out who had said that. A large
pair of dusty shoeprints stayed near Terra for the duration of class.

The teacher had high hopes that Terra would at least have done well in English,
but she didn't seem do any better in that than she did in anything else. The
Irish airhead could just barely manage enough to make it by, which would have
been fine if she were a blonde, but she wasn't.

Speaking of blondes, a certain Tsukino Usagi, who sat just behind Terra, asked
her for help during a pop quiz.

Haruna had to snap sometime.

"Tsukino-san, if you're going to have the gall to cheat right in front
of my face, then please at least try to cheat off someone who might
actually have the right answer!"

"No, she isn't!" the teacher shouted back. "For crying out loud,
she's British and she can't even speak proper English. Grr,
I can't take this anymore!" Screaming, she ran over and jumped out the
window.

A boy with thick glasses hurried over to look outside. "She landed in
the swimming pool!" He remembered what room he was in. "Hey, she sure
can jump far. This is the first floor and the pool's… wait, we don't even
have a pool." He frowned. "Eeew. The sewer system's broken and leaking
out all over the field."

Terra frowned suddenly. "She wasn't trying to say I'm not very smart,
was she? I'm smart. I had a shower this morning…."

For the first time in her life, Terra started to doubt herself. All through
lunch break and the rest of her classes, a single phrase echoed through her
head.

"Not very smart. Not very smart. Not very smart. Not very smart!"

Intelligence had never been her strong point. There came a point where, after
a certain level of thought, she just couldn't go deeper into a subject. It was
like large chunks of her brain had simply been deactivated. Still, if she pushed,
she could remember a lot of her life and her lack of success in pretty much
anything. Lamenting her dream-like state of being, she came to a decision.

"From this moment on, I wanna be smarter!"

Then she forgot what she was thinking about and found herself exiting the school
building while talking with Naru and Usagi. "Huh?" She looked around,
trying to discern her surroundings.

"Are you okay?" Naru asked. "You were staring blankly at nothing
and mumbling to yourself."

"What time is it?" Terra wondered. She turned around. "I should
get back to class."

"It's three o'clock," Usagi said. "Class is over."

Terra stopped. This seemed strange to her. The day had passed entirely too
quickly. Then again, maybe that's what Junior High was like. Or maybe… "You
Japanese people sure have short schooldays."

"Are you kidding?!" Usagi practically hollered. "That class
took forever! Well, I did manage to squeeze in a nap while Haruna-sensei
went home and changed, but aside from that, it was really long!"

"Oh," Terra breathed, "I must not have been paying attention."

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Naru said, "but you seem to have
some kind of learning disability."

"I do not!" Usagi cried.

"I wasn't talking about you."

The blonde straightened. "Oh, then who…?" She looked a Terra. "Naaah,
she's probably just jetlagged. It's a long flight from Ireland. Probably needs
a good nap."

"No thanks," Terra said, waving off the suggestion, "I'm not
too much into foreign food." She glanced over at Usagi's ponytails. They
were really long — like, scary long. The way they waved in the air made them
look like snakes. The knobs on top, when she looked at them in the right light,
seemed kind of like hooded cobra heads. She blinked and the illusion vanished.
They didn't really look anything like snakes; they were more like spaghetti
and meatballs.

But then Terra reconsidered. If she wasn't very smart, then maybe the snakes
in Usagi's hair were concealing themselves, thinking that the redhead wouldn't
notice them. That would mean that they were slowly closing in on the poor girl,
just looking for the proper moment to strike.

"I'll save you, Usagi!"

Terra reached out to grab the blonde's ponytails, but they fell off! Then they
hissed and squirmed around on the ground, rattling their tails, and lunged at
her face, sharp barrettes dripping with venom.

Terra awoke with a start, tearing at her hair. She ripped the ribbons out and
threw them to the floor. "WAAAH! PONYTAILS! GET 'EM OFF ME! GET 'EM…
huh?"

When Terra finally calmed down, she discovered she was at her new Japanese
home, in her bed. Looking at her clock, it was about four in the afternoon,
an hour after she'd left school. Her shoes were off and she was still dressed
in her seifuku.

"Wh… what happened?" she wondered aloud to nonexistent auditory
organs. "Where did the hair-snakes go?"

She gradually wandered downstairs and found Usagi, Naru, and her mother chatting
over tea.

Kasumi stood up, absolutely thrilled. "Terra, you're awake!"

"You passed out," Naru said.

"It really must have been a rough day for you," added Usagi.

Kasumi nodded and led her daughter to the couch. "We just got here a day
and a half ago. We both need to take it easy."

Naru hummed her agreement. "It must be tough moving to the other side
of the world so suddenly."

"I guess so," Terra admitted, looking down.

"So it WAS jet lag," Usagi concluded.

"Decided to let your hair down?" Naru observed.

"All the ponytails were trying to eat me," Terra whispered secretively,
as if hinting that there was a horrible monster nearby and it would get them
all if they spoke too loudly. She pointed at Usagi's head. "Can't you see?!
They're just waiting for the right moment to strike!"

"So," Kasumi cut in quickly, "would you like to hear about why
we moved here?"

"Sure," replied both Usagi and Naru.

The four chatted for half an hour. Kasumi explained why they'd come to Japan.
There were a few reasons, like being closer to family members, but mostly it
was to help give Terra a totally fresh environment in which to develop. Ireland,
she explained, was getting to be a tad too rough a climate in which to properly
raise a child.

"Then why not do home schooling?" Naru asked. "That's becoming
more popular in some countries, I hear."

Kasumi appeared to consider this. "No, that wouldn't be proper. She needs
to find friends." She looked at her daughter. "And it looks like you've
found some already, haven't you?"

"Bye!" both said, and hurried out, almost throwing the door closed
behind them.

"Fate," Kasumi whispered. She looked out the window and saw the Moon
in the daylight sky and paused as if trying to make some sense out of the conversation
— to give the whole thing some sort of meaning. Then she shrugged and looked
back at her daughter. "Terra, do you know why those two ran off?"

"They had to go do stuff?" Terra asked.

"That too, but Japanese people aren't as… touchy-feely as your friends
in Ireland were. They like having space, so next time you probably don't want
to randomly come up and hug people you've just met."

Terra went for a walk in the park in hopes of filling her mind. Some people
went out to help clear their minds, but it was all she could do to keep everything
from falling out of hers. She took a notepad and desperately tried to write
down and memorize the things her mother just told her.

"Don't go up and hug random people just because they're cute. They might
have pointy umbrellas. Japanese culture consists of 'in' groups and 'out' groups.
Don't get on other peoples' nerves unless you want to be in the 'out' group.
Next, remember that you cannot join the 'in' group. Ever."

She turned to her notes on honorifics and speaking properly to others. "Remember
to use last names and add -san to people I just meet. When I find a superior,
I need to use humble expressions and dance around what I want to talk about,
but I can never come out and just say it. In fact, it's best if I don't use
names at all. For a classmate I know fairly well but I want to be respectful
to, add -kun to his or her name. Children and very good friends I feel comfortable
being informal with get the -chan suffix. Using -sama is when I want to… er,
and -sempai works for… umm… aw-w-w, this is too hard!" In frustration,
Terra crumpled up her notepad and threw it towards a nearby garbage can.

"Ow!" said a voice from the garbage can.

"What kind of a language is this?!" Tears forming in her eyes, Terra
found a nearby bench, sat down, and buried her head in her hands. "I'll
never get it right!" Her skull pounded from the effort she was putting
forth. "I'm so worthless! I'm too dumb to live here right!"

The girl suddenly felt a gloved hand on her shoulder. She looked up to see
a tall man in shining green camouflage armor looking down at her in concern.

"Shut up, Terra," he said in what might have been an angry tone had
his expression not been so worried. "You're not worthless! As a matter
of fact, you're the single most valuable person on this moist, roach-infested
planet and don't you ever let anybody tell you different!"

"Wh… who are you?" Terra asked. She might have been frightened,
but this man seemed to know her, and what's more, he spoke in perfect, unaccented
Gaelic. It was the one language she didn't absolutely stink at. "How do
you know my language?" She paused. Manifesting what was for her a tremendous
leap of intuition, she amended, "Forget about my language, how do you know
my name?!"

"It was one of the first things I looked up when I finally found you."

"What?"

"I've spent twenty thousand years searching for you!"

"Twenty thousand years?"

"It's a terrible bother, waiting millennia for yourself to be reborn,
isn't it?"

"Who are you?"

The man struck a pose. "I am the terror that blasts in the night! I am
the nova that wipes out my enemies' home worlds. I am… THE STAR LIGHT KNIGHT!"
Green and white fireworks exploded in the sky behind him. "I'm your Knight
in Shining Armor, baby!"

Terra suddenly cheered up. "The Star Light Knight?" She blushed in
spite of herself. She wouldn't mind having him for her knight in shining armor
every once in a while. The guy was kind of cute, after all. "Tee-hee! You
could'a just looked me up in the phone book, big guy. Are you a nice guy? Are
you going to be my boyfriend?"

The Star Light Knight deflated a bit. "Uh…. Look, you're very
lucky to have met me now and not later. Be glad I'm your friend and not some
predator."

"Are you a Predator?"

"Well yes, but not of you specifically."

"Do you have a cloaking device?"

"Yup!"

"How about a nuclear self-destruct weapon?"

The man nodded proudly. "Still got three or four of 'em left."

"How about a mask? Why isn't your face all icky?"

Realization dawned for the knight. "Uh… by Predator, I see you mean
a certain brutally effective hunter race that for some crazy reason — it was
me — made it into Hollywood film making. But I'm talking in the more general
sense of the word."

"Huh?" Terra looked as if she wanted a more in-depth explanation.

"Look, I don't care what anyone says, but human girls can't run that fast,
and they can't take very many hits. I prefer hunting stuff with a little more
fight in it. Magical warriors, demonic youma, stuff like that."

"Do you eat them?"

The Star Light Knight paused again. "Hey now, as much as I'd like to catch
up on old times and stuff, talking to you as you are now is becoming extremely
annoying—"

"Then why don't you stop talking to me?"

"Don't get smart with me!"

"Want me to get stupid with you?" Terra's voice had no sarcasm. It
was a simple, innocent question.

S.L.K. appeared to be resisting the urge to go for his holstered weapon. "Look,
forget about it, okay?"

Terra nodded. Now they were getting back into familiar territory. "Okay.
I can do that." She did so.

"Now, do you know what happened to your brain?"

The girl shook her head. "Huh-uh."

"Does your head tend to rattle when you shake it?"

"Huh-uh."

"Good, then there's still hope. If it's not missing, it means that somehow,
most of your mind's been outright sealed away. Mostly, it's memory, but about
two thirds of your ability to think is also closed off. That means instead of
an IQ of over two hundred, you're more like below eighty right now. Do you understand
what I just said?"

"Um, no?"

"Right answer."

"Neat. So what'cha doing?"

The man raised a glowing electric guitar high above Terra's head. "Breaking
the seal. Just stand very still."

"Why?"

"Because, take it from me, this hurts quite a lot."

The sweet little schoolgirl heard a harsh discord somewhere between her eyes,
and then everything went black.

Sailor Nuke(looks away): Just… quit it. (turns back to the audience) So remember,
if you're going to Japan to be rude, BETTER PACK A LOT OF AMMO!!! Worked back
in the 'forties. Sailor Nuke sez. BWAHAHAHAHHAHAAA!

Sailor Kawaii: Or, if you're cute, you can get away with being rude anyway.
If you're cute, you can get away with anything! Sailor Kawaii says.
Tee-hee!

Author(stares blearily at what he just wrote): Oh dear. What in the world is
this?!